This may be of interest if you’re curious about fellow site visitors. Site visits M-F are running between 500-650 every day. Weekend visits run between 375-450 a day so the weekend traffic brings down the daily average. Daily new site visitors runs steadily from between 220-250 per day (compare that to a total of 53 new visitors for the entire month of April). Total hits since the blog was started in April are 360,000. The average visitor reads 3.5 pages but the average visit (60%) is 0-30 seconds long (this is a vast improvement from 92% in July). This means that those who do spend more time on site are reading a lot more pages to cover the shortfall. Those who run their own blogs know that many of the short visits are hits from RSS feeds or Bloglet subscriptions (the latter register 0 seconds on site). 20% of you spend 30 minutes to over an hour per visit (my site stats only indicate 1+ hour with no other specifics). For those who don’t know, these are pretty good stats for a largely unknown blog, particularly since its focus is so specialized.
Regarding browsers, Internet Explorer users comprise 52% a decrease of 25 points since July (yeah!). Firefox (including Mozilla) users comprise about 30%, an improvement of 21 percentage points since July. By the way, this site was designed to be viewed in Firefox. To those of you who still don’t have Firefox, all I can say is that someday nearly everyone will be running Firefox -no pop-ups, greater security and stability, it’s free- and when you finally do start running it, your greatest regret will be not having done it sooner. That is what everybody says. Get Firefox. It’s free, easy and fast to install and you’re going to love it. You can read reviews here.
Site visitors by country (in descending order) are United States, Unknown, Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Netherlands, European Union, Sweden, Hong Kong, China, Japan, South Africa, Taiwan, Italy, Trinidad-Tobago, United Arab Emirates, France, Germany, Spain, South Korea, Portugal, Singapore, Kuwait, India and Belgium. You’ll note from the last time that Japan’s stats have fallen comparatively although their bandwidth consumption remains steady. Finland has also fallen out of the top ten although their usage is the same. Spain’s position has also fallen comparatively (their usage is slightly higher tho) but I note -with a degree of satisfaction- that the vast majority of my Spanish traffic is generated from an ISP in La Coruña which is better known as the location of ZARA corporate headquarters (yo hablo español -demais, falo portugese- quizás me invitarán a visitar algún dÃa).
I’m not sure I should be too specific when it comes to disclosing the top search phrases when it comes to landing on the site but I’m grateful that I (barely) make the top ten although Zara beats me in the rankings easily.
I’d also prefer to remain mum regarding the status of inbound links except to say that a significant portion of my traffic is derived from many small sites, mostly enthusiasts. Once I upgrade my MT install, I’ll be reconfiguring the site to include links to everyone who links to me. I sincerely appreciate links from even the smallest sites. For example, one of our regulars is apologetic that her site is small and not heavily trafficked but Gigi, I got 22 hits from you so far this month. Please consider linking to me -that goes double for my designer-entrepreneurs. I am continually dismayed that none of the DE companies link to me. This makes me very resentful and makes me question why I help you when you obviously can’t see fit to help me or your future colleagues and further reinforces the perception that designers are selfish and only looking out for themselves and I’m trying to build a community here. In that same vein, only enthusiasts or planning-stage DEs donate! Actually, none of the established businesses donate, so those of you reading comments from people with businesses -often the most active commenters- you should know they don’t link or donate. When they post, their name is a link and they get traffic from me so you can see why I don’t think this is fair. Some of them become experts at my expense too, dispensing advice but not bothering to mention their source of information so you can see how I’d question their integrity, intellectual and otherwise. I give all of you my source links so consider returning the favor. Be fair.
I want to link to you! I’m working out kinks in a website trade gone awry so that I can edit my own pages again…The latest word is that Firefox may be the key, so I may switch from Safari (which wasn’t in your stats, BTW.) Although, Safari, along with all Mac-based everything is way more trouble-free than I. Explorer.
I am continually dismayed that none of the DE companies link to me. This makes me very resentful and makes me question why I help you when you obviously can’t see fit to help me or your future colleagues and further reinforces the perception that designers are selfish and only looking out for themselves and I’m trying to build a community here.
In defense of webmasters, I don’t do reciprocal linking. If you run a product-based website, it’s generally not a good idea to link your visitors out to somewhere else unless it’s beneficial for you to do so. If I were to link out, the links would be buried somewhere. I don’t know Kathleen, I understand your frustration, but if I were trying to make money with my website, the last thing I would be doing is linking out. I would want people to come to my website to buy my product, not learn how I make it.
I guess it’s all a matter of perception, graciousness and generosity. I’ve seen plenty of DE sites that list helpful links on their “about us” page with related links -I don’t CARE that its buried! It shouldn’t be on the front page or on products pages and I didn’t suggest that. So many designers complain that no one will help them, yet they don’t help anyone either! I see it very much as selfishness, just wanting goodies for themselves and to hell with anybody else. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve spoken with DEs from my site and they all complain that information is so hard to come by, that nobody wants to help them out yet none of them are gracious or generous enough to help out either. I don’t feel a bit sorry for them. Eventually, what goes around, comes around.
I added your link to our About page.
Fashion-incubator.com is the only outbound link we have on our entire site.
I must say, I completely disagree that any DE would have anything to lose by linking to fashion-incubator for the following reasons:
1) Your customers buy your stuff because they like your designs, not because they don’t know how to make it themselves. If that’s not true, you’re in the wrong business.
2) I’ve taught enough beginning/intermediate sewers to realize that most people think this is MUCH easier than it is. Kathleen’s book and site does a good job of showing just how much time, energy and thought goes in designing clothes. The average lukewarm fashionista is more likely to get scared off than say “hey, I’ll just do all that myself!”
3) Kathleen’s site is clearly aimed at serious professionals, and linking to it show that you are seriously interested in professional growth. This is a good thing.
4) If more DE’s & potential DE’s visit Kathleen’s site and decide to join the fray, so much the better for our industry, and so much the better for you, too. The more DE’s get into the act, the more incentive for the fashion industry to provide resources aimed at DE’s.
5) In general, I beleive that all decisions should be based on facts and possibilities, not fear and ego. I’ve seen great ideas fail because fear and ego prevented them from taking root. I’ve seen mediocre ideas succeed because of their owner’s belief in them. Attitude is more important than skill, frankly. (although I hope to have both one day :) )
6) I, for one, have already had interest in my services generated by vistors to Kathleen’s site, who see my comments.
7) It’s great to tell potential clients needing services that are out of my league “I can’t help you, but visit fashion-incubator.com, it has a great list of more appropriate resources.” Those people think more of me because I could help them, not less.
I couldn’t disagree less about not providing links on a site related to selling a product. I ask everyone who purchases something from my site how they found out about me. Aside from a few mentions that I’ve received in the media, most of it has been that someone found me through another online DE’s site. And I’ve loved the handful of times that one of the people who are my links email me and say “Someone just bought something from me and said they found me through your site.” It’s a reciprocal relationship. Have I lost a sale because someone saw another handbag designer linked to from my site and liked their product more than mine? Possibly, but the amount of sales I’ve made from others links to me means that I have some karma to pay back and I don’t mind doing so.
I was linking to you from my font site:http://www.bvfonts.com/links.shtml but it was the url you had before this so I just updated it, hee.
It’s so true. I’ve never trust anyone who doesn’t have a good links page.
That’s what this whole internetty thing is all about – networking. The more incoming and outgoing links, the better! (of course quality is the definitive indicator of why I choose to link or not)
I linked you a while ago, I forget if I posted that here. I found you through a post on Diane Pernet’s blog and just love all the valuable information you’ve got here. Keep up the good work!
I read this and immediately added you to my link list! I honestly hadn’t thought about it! Also, I just received your book in the mail and am totally pumped to read it!